Chrysoprase in Coal
by A Deed Without a Name
Summary: Dean has been free of demonic characteristics for several months now. Sam knows that...when he's awake, at least. WARNING: Contains Wincest, gore, torture, rape/non-con, angst, and a dream version of demon!Dean
1. Chapter 1

Sam is on a hunt, alone, and it's unquestionably night even though the abandoned house he's prowling through has no windows or doors. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but does know he's unarmed, not even a folding knife in his pocket. Both of these things seem perfectly normal to him.

His boots make no sound at all on the dusty, churned-up carpet. It's perfect. He hears it clearly when Dean calls out to him.

"Sammy!"

Sam turns with a smile, watching Dean melt out of the shadows that drape the edges of the house. He's happy to see him until he notices his eyes: solid jet, as if all pupil. A chill jitters through Sam but he resolves to act normally. Dean will not hurt him just so long as Sam doesn't let on he knows he's a demon, that's a fact.

It'll be okay. Sam's good at lying to his brother.

But he doesn't even get a chance to try it out before it stops working. As soon as he's close enough, Dean grabs him by the throat and lifts him one-handed, like Sam weighs no more than his duffel bag. Sam chokes, unable to draw any air past the fingers clamped around his neck. His hands are weak when he tries to pry Dean's grip loose, his nails blunt as he tries to claw painful furrows across his knuckles.

Dean smiles up at him, beatific.

"You got no idea how long I've wanted to do this," he tells Sam in a conversational tone.

A second later, Dean abruptly drops him. There's no strength in Sam, so he collapses the second his feet touch the floor. The pressure is gone but Sam finds himself still choking for oxygen, a full breath far out of reach. He's been strangled so many times, and panic over a suffocation death always rears up sharp and ugly in him; he wonders occasionally if it isn't on its way to becoming a phobia. Now is no different.

Soon, though, he is focused on tearing agony in his scalp when Dean takes a brimming handful of his hair and drags him down the hall.

"I ever tell you how much I fuckin' _hate _this?" Dean gives Sam hair and, by extension, his head and neck a painful shake. "You don't even know how stupid you look. And guess you don't care how much danger you put both of us in every case, hunting with a head full of brown Farrah Fawcett hair."

There is a staircase now, separated from the hallway by a decaying railing. Dean doesn't hesitate before hurling Sam through it.

The height he falls from feels obscene. It must be an abandoned skyscraper, not a house. Sam can't seem to scream on the way down, but if he could, what difference would it make?

His legs break violently under him when he lands. He doesn't even try to get up, knows already he can't. The long limbs are twisted and full of irregular shapes. Blood seeps in dark blotches through his jeans. It doesn't hurt, but Sam can feel the pain looming, bearing down on him. And he would not say he's afraid of pain, not anymore, but the idea of this reaching him is terrifying.

Dean is there all of a sudden, strolling loosely towards Sam on bowed legs. Sam wants to start an exorcism even though he's not sure it would even work, with Dean using his own body as a vessel. Or at least get a one-second flinch out of him with _Christo_. Sam still can't make a sound, though.

Dean crouches, smiles. Then he grabs Sam's face with both hands. His right thumb sinks purposely into Sam's left eye, which bursts almost immediately. Fluid gushes down his face, his socket aches dully, and gristly noises squish and grind inside his head as Dean digs at nerve and muscle.

Now Sam can scream.

As soon as his mouth opens, Dean grabs his jaw and begins to pull down. Sam distantly catalogues the dislocation, the stretching of tendons, the skin at the corners of his mouth beginning to tear.

"I'm gonna rip you apart, Sammy," Dean says pleasantly. "Slow. With my bare hands. And I'm gonna enjoy every second 'cause all this, everything? It's your fault." He lets go of Sam's jaw, and it dangles. "You know you gotta pay." He goes back to Sam's throat. "You deserve everything I feel like throwing at you, all the way up 'til I dig your heart outta your chest and _eat _it."

* * *

Sam woke up the same way he had hundreds of times in the past few weeks: sweaty, terrified, and exhausted. The sheets were hot and rubbery with moisture under him, and his pulse pounded hard enough under his jaw to hurt. He felt less like he'd slept and more like he'd spent all night sneaking through a haunted forest.

Bringing his knees up with a groan, he rested his chest on them and draped an arm down the length of his (unbroken, whole) legs, running a hand through hair acrid sweat had matted to his scalp. The skin underneath itched. He scratched for a second, hard, then made himself stop, afraid of drawing blood.

He was used to nightmares. He'd had them most nights for as long as he could remember, respites few and far between. But there was something..._different_ about these.

The closest thing he could compare it to was the time when Castiel had knocked down the wall sealing off his memories of Hell, and let a version of Lucifer spill over into Sam's everyday perception. But it wasn't quite the same. Nothing could be as bad as that.

He tended to wake himself up in the middle of the night, but he was pleasantly surprised to see that it was morning when he glanced at the clock on his bedside table. Might as well get up, even if it was a couple hours earlier than usual.

Sam showered off the sweat and the clinging remnants of last night's dreams. He was feeling better by the time he got dressed, although not good enough to get rid of a childish compulsion to turn all the lights on.

He made sure the kitchen was well-lit, too, when he got started on making a pot of coffee. He went with the high-caffeine blend he'd ordered online recently. It was probably proof of how badly he needed it, that he didn't hear the boots coming down the stairs and hallway until Dean was already there.

"You're up early," he noted. Sam flinched so hard it made the muscles in his back twinge, already sore after a night of tension, and dropped the box of filters. "Sorry, sorry." Dean picked the filters up and tossed them back to Sam. He caught them, mostly on reflex. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Sam forced half a smile and turned his back on Dean. "Fine."

"Okay." There was a shrug in Dean's voice. Sam heard him grab a mug, and then he came over to the counter, where the coffeemaker was just starting to percolate. Sam drew in a breath and held it. He could feel Dean studying him. "Dude. You look awful." Sam rubbed at his eyes, burning with lack of sleep. Especially the left one. "You aren't comin' down with something, are you?"

"Uh, I don't think so." The sleeves of Dean's flannel were rolled up almost to his elbows, and Sam's eyes were sucked straight to the Mark. The brilliant red against the pale skin of Dean's forearm reminded Sam of lividity on a corpse. After a second, Dean shifted, Mark turning out of sight and pressing against the counter.

"Good. Just try not to give it to me if you are."

Four or so feet away from Sam, Dean settled in to watch the coffee drizzle into the pot, sin-black. Sam held himself firmly still so he wouldn't twitch. It was like he was being torn raggedly into two separate pieces, one ready to cry with how badly it wanted comfort from the man who was the best source of it Sam had ever found, and the other...

For the other piece of Sam, it was still night. It was always night.

He couldn't be next to Dean anymore. The smell of him, his warmth, even from this distance they did things to Sam he couldn't stand. As casually as he could manage, he went to the table and pulled out his phone, so it would at least look like he was doing something other than staring into space.

He knew Dean was still looking at him, and he knew he was still worried. But neither of them said anything else as the coffeepot steadily filled.

They hadn't had sex since Dean had been cured. Honestly, it'd been a while even before he left the bunker in Crowley's company, Sam buried in drunken sleep and still believing he was dead. With what the Mark had been doing to him, even kissing seemed like too much of a risk.

Things were better now, marginally. And when Castiel was around, Sam could feel him wondering why they hadn't fallen into bed with each other as soon as Dean's eyes cleared. Sam had been confused about that, too. But a gaping distance had come to light, a cavernous fear of intimacy that Sam didn't think either of them could navigate or even properly identify. They definitely weren't about to talk through it.

Dean poured himself a cup of coffee, then broke the silence as he brought one over to Sam. He hadn't bothered putting anything in it, apparently noticing he drank it black lately.

"Think I'm gonna swing by the grocery store later. You need anything?"

"No." Sam didn't relax until Dean was back over by the counter, and even then, it was only a little bit. "I'm good."


	2. Chapter 2

Sam is in the storeroom where their dungeon's hidden behind a false wall. The space is much smaller than he knows it should be, and all the lights are off but Sam can still see well enough. He's gagging on fear because something is coming for him, fast, he can hear bootsteps ringing steadily closer off the walls, and he's not sure what it is but it _can't_ find him.

There's only one way out and the thing hunting him will be coming through it. Even if there was another door, Sam can't run; he's sunk hip-deep in quicksand he can't see, has to fight for every step. Hiding's the only real option.

He tries desperately to wedge himself into a shallow space between two shelves. There's no time to look for a better spot, and of course he's too big. He doubts he would've fit here even when he was so much smaller. Elementary school, middle school. He attempts to close his eyes, knowing now the owner of the boots is right outside the door, but if he even manages it, then he can see through his lids.

Dean's eyes are black above a wide smile when he finds Sam, half a second after entering the room. As he hauls Sam up with a double fistful of his shirt, it occurs to Sam (too late) that he should have fought. A weapon would have been easier to find in here than a hiding place.

"There you are," Dean says, and it's almost fond. "Don't you know by now this just makes it that much harder on you?"

He takes Sam to their dungeon, and for some reason it looks a lot like what Sam remembers of the Cage. He can't struggle as his wrists are chained above his head, and he manages to stay silent, but feels himself start to cry. Dean notices the tears and laughs, as if delighted.

"Always were a crybaby," he comments. "Used to get so worked up whenever you fought with Dad you wound up bawling, remember? No wonder you kept trying to run away; not like you ever could've actually won an argument."

Dean has a tray next to him, littered with knives, scalpels, forceps, tools Sam can't even name but his brother undoubtedly knows how to use.

"You know how I got through my time in Hell, Sam?" Sam's clothes (jacket, button down, T-shirt) are immaterial as early-morning dew on a windshield, allowing easy access to the vulnerable skin underneath. "I imagined every soul I carved up down there was yours." Dean picks up a knife, tests the heft of it in his hand. "I've been itching to try out what I learned down there since Cas dragged me back up topside. _Cas_, 'cause an angel I'd never met cared more about me than my own damn brother." Dean drags the point of the knife along Sam's left collarbone, slicing him slowly open. Sam knows it should sting but instead the pain is dull, horrifying. "The itch got real bad whenever you abandoned me or fucked me over, which was, y'know, all the time. There was always something holding me back, though." He unknits the skin over Sam's right clavicle. "Not anymore.

"Could probably make myself a new leather jacket outta this...definitely enough here." Dean swipes down Sam's middle, hollow of his throat to where his pelvis joins. The blade catches momentarily on his navel. "Honestly, though, ain't worth the trouble. Ain't a whole lot more to you than the entertainment value, far as I'm concerned." None of Sam's organs have been punctured. It's a skinning cut. "Once that's gone, think I'll pitch you out with the rest of the garbage." Dean makes eye contact, and his smile drips with Lucifer as he opens seams along Sam's hips. "Be worth it not to have to look at any piece of you ever again."

Sam gasps for air and it hurts to breath. He's bleeding down his legs, drops falling away through the woven metal of the floor, into the smoke and lightning and darkness of Hell's core.

"Now." Dean exchanges the knife for a curved one with a hooked end. "Let's see what your guts look like. I'm real curious, since they can't be the same as a normal person's." He loosens the edges of the cuts he's made. "Not after what you did to yourself with Ruby."

Grabbing the edges of the flaps he's separated Sam's skin into, he pulls. And Sam finally begins to scream, even though it hurts, so bad in his ribs and lungs he can't believe he's not already dead.

* * *

They were out on their first hunt since Dean had gotten back, just a simple witch case.

Sam welcomed the distraction. Sure, he was tired. And sharing a room with Dean made it harder to hide how bad he was sleeping now. Dean seemed to be sleeping worse than usual too, though, and it was just nice to be out of the bunker. Doing something useful.

He was sitting at the room's table, laptop open next to him and back to the door, cleaning their guns and making sure they had enough witch-killing bullets. He didn't flinch when Dean came in with a "Hey," which he was proud of.

"How'd it go?" Sam asked, eyes on the clip he was loading.

"PTA president definitely knows something, but she's not gonna give it up in front of her husband," Dean replied. "Mentioned a fundraising gala tonight, so I figured we might rent a couple tuxes and swing by. See if she's more helpful after a few glasses of wine." His duffel unzipped. "By the way, I remembered where those knives you were asking about are. Never took 'em outta my bag."

"Oh, cool. Thanks." Sam set the clip aside. "Probably a good thing we've got 'em with us."

"How 'bout you?" Dean wanted to know. "Find anything useful?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam turned to his laptop, scrolled down. "So, get this. The school nurse who choked on the literal frog in her throat, and the gymnastics teacher everyone saw fold herself in half backwards?" He heard Dean walk over. "Well, turns out they had a problem with the _same_ \- "

The rest of the sentence turned to sand in his throat. He had his laptop on low light to conserve power, so reflections showed up sharp on the screen. The shape of Dean standing behind him with a hooked knife was clear.

The guns were in pieces on the table. Even if they hadn't been, he probably wouldn't have reached for one, pulling a trigger was hardly ever Sam's go-to. He stood, chair toppling over, moving to use his height. Grabbed Dean's wrist even though the knife'd already been casually down by his side. He went to chop his throat, knock his legs out from under him with a sweep of his own. The taste of something vile and metallic sat on his tongue.

This felt almost familiar, with all the times they'd sparred before.

Dean dropped the knife and blocked Sam's forearm, face blank with shock, and then they went down with Dean on top. The air belted out of Sam's lungs and his skull bounced off the floor, thin carpet over concrete. His vision skewed and blinked for a second and his hair covered his face.

Dean pushed himself up a couple inches, hands pinning Sam's arms awkwardly to his chest. He was breathing hard and clearly shaken, but he was covering that up fast with anger.

"What the _hell, _Sam?!" he demanded.

Half a breath stuttered into Sam. He was drenched in feeling: shame, longing. Arousal, because Dean on top of him automatically woke up a recently-disinterested part. And fear. Always fear. That last one shouldered its way to the front of the pack as the strongest, and Sam felt it leak through on his face as Dean stared down at him. His eyes ached and stung and he blinked fast to head off the inevitable. Dean's fury morphed rapidly into horror and he scrambled off Sam, scooting away from him.

Sam sat up and rubbed at his face. He didn't get up, though, and neither did Dean. They spent a long, silent time down there on their room's dirty floor, more than a healthy distance between them. Sam knew he ought to be the one to break the silence.

"Sorry," he apologized quietly once they'd both caught their breath, not looking at Dean.

"What's going on with you, man?" Dean shook his head.

"What d'you mean?" Sam cringed even as he said it. That was _not _a good answer right now, he was usually better at this.

"You've been bugging out for the past month." Dean flung his hands out like he was eager to explain, and Sam didn't want to, but he looked at his right arm anyway. He imagined he could see an echo of the Mark, an afterimage as it throbbed and burned its way through his FBI suit. "I know you're not sleeping, and seems like you aren't eating much besides coffee and aspirin, either. You..." Dean faltered, his momentum dying off all of a sudden. "Was it. It wasn't like this while...before, was it?"

Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Dean's voice crack like this. It felt like one of his own ribs fracturing. Dean had so goddamn much on his plate right now already, how the hell could Sam expect him to deal with his younger brother being afraid of him even though he was unquestionably human again? Sam felt like a hypocrite, with all the times he'd pushed Dean to talk to him over the years, but he couldn't think of anything worse right now than the truth. Especially when it didn't even make sense.

"It's nothing." Sam shook his own head, brushing his hair out of his face. "Just...been under a lot of stress lately. Nothing new." He looked at Dean and _god_, did he ever hate himself for that split-second flicker of terror right before he met his eyes. Because they might be black. They weren't, of course. "I'm fine."

He knew he'd learned the lesson of honesty the hard way, over and over and over again, but he was still pretty sure there were things Dean just didn't need to know. Every once in a while. Sam was sure this was the selfless thing to do.

Dean stared at him, and there was something in his eyes, his face. Despite how well he knew him, Sam couldn't quite figure out what it was. Dean looked away after a while, poking his tongue into his lower lip. There was a bleak set to his shoulders as he got up. Sam heard his knees pop.

"Right." Dean cleared his throat. "Good talk." It wasn't even sarcastic, just quiet. "Well, we got a few hours 'til that gala thing, so just...keep doing what you're doing." He waved a hand vaguely at Sam's laptop. "I'm gonna go see if I can't find some more witnesses."

That'd basically always been code for "find the nearest bar," but Sam didn't say anything and let him go. He wouldn't get drunk. He had a sky-high tolerance and knew exactly where his tipping point was. With hunting, and being a Winchester, that was as vital a skill as being able to hit a werewolf's heart on the first shot.

Sam got up slowly, aching, and went back to the guns. He didn't right the chair, choosing to just stand.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam is tired even when he's asleep.

He knows, vaguely, that he's dreaming right now, but that seems as undeniable as the demon blood running thin in his veins. There's no changing his circumstances or his surroundings. He's getting home, alone, the circles under his eyes aching like real bruises. He thinks Dean is still missing. But like most things right now that's blurry, liminal.

When he goes to open the door to his room, someone hits him from behind so hard it knocks the breath out of his lungs. They grab him, push him through the closed door with only a little resistance, and he can't see who it is, but they smell like Dean and sulfur. Sam is afraid and also shamefully, sickeningly aroused.

This isn't his room. Despite the absence of identifying details, Sam knows it's the motel where he and Dean made love for the very first time. Everything is bad and wrong in a way he can't quite identify, though, all nauseous angles and walls that pulse like infected flesh.

The bed is damp when Dean pins him to it, like the roof has been leaking onto it, bedding slowly rotting and mattress springs rusting away. Putrid water swells up around Sam's form as he sinks. He stares up at Dean, the black eyes, the freckles. He looks almost bored and Sam thinks he might rather have him leering. He's got his hands on Sam's chest to hold him in place, and they _burn_, like there's acid seeping from the lines in his palms and fingers. Sam's shirt has already melted away in a shapeless double-handprint pattern, and he's sure his skin is next.

"Please." Sam knows what's going to happen and despises that a part of him is resigned to it. "Stop."

"Stop what, Sammy?" Dean drags his hands down Sam's stomach to grip his hips, his ass. Fabric falls away and raw, blistering skin is left behind. "Big brother's gonna take care of you, just like I do all the time. Oughta shut up and lemme do my job."

"I miss you." Sam should not be hard. On some level, maybe, he deserves this. "I want you back. That's all I've wanted for months, I'm..._dying, _I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know who I am without you. I've never known."

"Seemed to have a pretty good idea when you were with Jess," Dean points out. "Ruby. Amelia." He reaches up to Sam's head as if to stroke his hair, but what he's doing is actually burning him bald. "Face it, Sam, you know exactly who you are. That's all you've ever cared about. And we both know I wouldn't've ever had anything to do with you if I didn't have the shitty luck of being born to the same parents." He pauses. "Man. Just think about how I might've turned out if I hadn't had you around to fuck up my whole life."

"I'm sorry," Sam croaks. He doesn't usually get to talk, but it doesn't seem like being able to is making a huge difference. "I never meant..." He knows, somehow, that he's got his strength at the moment, just like his voice. He could hurt Dean if he tried. Break bones, tear skin, puncture eyes. No effort at all. But he doesn't want to do that anymore. "I need you. I just want you to come back."

"I think this is what you really want." Dean brings his hand back down to Sam's jeans, exposing him. Then he slides inside him easy on a froth of blood, acid, and dissolving flesh.

Sam gasps, breath hitching. Dean barely reacts to the entrance at all.

"I'd tell you this is all you're good for," he tells Sam almost gently, "but to be honest, I've had better."

He fucks him savagely to pieces, and it's a hell Sam is intimately familiar with.

* * *

The hunt went off beautifully, everything considered. They might've celebrated under other circumstances, but as it was, the silence in the car was icy. It was night and they were still states away from the bunker. Sam felt worn, the rush of saving an entire community from a vindictive mommy group coven no balm. Stretched as thin as he had been when the ghost of Lucifer and his own trauma had been nipping endlessly at his heels, and very, very lonely.

"Sounded like you had a rough one last night," Dean commented flatly, the first time either of them had spoken in hours. Sam could tell from the sound of his voice that he didn't actually expect it to go anywhere. Neither did Sam.

"I had...a nightmare." He wasn't sure what made him say it as he stared out the window, mile markers whipping past like glittering pins dropped onto a map of America. "I've been having nightmares for a long time now."

"Like, normal nightmares? Or something new?"

"Something new." When Dean didn't say anything, Sam continued, haltingly. "They're." He coughed. "Th-they're about you." He was agonizingly aware of the pain he was causing, of how selfish he was being by not just shouldering them alone. "It's stupid. It's just...I can't figure it out, and trust me, I've tried. I don't know why it's happening."

"I know," Dean replied. There was a note of...peace? Or something like it in his voice. But it wasn't the healthy kind. More like the peace someone made with suicide. "I was a demon, and I tried to kill you. Course you're havin' nightmares about me. Course you jump outta your skin when I walk in the room."

"Dean, this isn't your fault!" Sam exclaimed, turning to him. "It's _mine_. There's something wrong with me." He was desperate to make him understand. "And I hate it so much 'cause I've got you back again, but I can't even appreciate it. It's like you're still gone." He squeezed his own thigh where his hand was resting, hard enough to purple fingerprint bruises under his jeans. "And I know I'm hurting you."

"You're not hurting me, Sam." Dean sounded tired. "You're afraid me. I get it. I'm afraid of me right now, too."

Sam swallowed. Dean went on after a second.

"Maybe I oughta leave."

_"No."_ Sam even shocked himself with the intensity of his immediate answer. He tried to translate how he was feeling. "I can't lose you again. I can't. Not so soon; hell, not ever! Being with you like this is still..._infinitely _better than not having you around."

"What d'you want me to do, then?" Dean demanded, tossing a hand up. He looked at Sam as soon as he did it, like he was expecting him to flinch, but there wasn't much room for fear inside him right now, unlike back at the motel room. The space was mostly taken up by frustration and misery. "You want me to hang around, but you're fucking _terrified_ of me, Sam, and don't try and act like you don't have a good reason to be. I can't trust myself with you 'cause _this_?" He raised his right arm, fist clenched, elbow bent. "Is the Bloody Mark of Cain. Cain, who killed his own brother." His voice was cracking again. "I don't care who else this thing makes me hurt, just so long as it ain't you. But I'm scared it's gonna be. And so are you." He dropped his hand back to the wheel with a heavy _slap_. "So what's your grand, elaborate plan, Sam?"

"I don't have one." Admitting that felt like a bigger betrayal, a bigger failure, than telling the truth had been. "I don't know." He ground the heels of his hands into eyes that felt like they'd had highway grit packed into the sockets around them. "But I'm not gonna let you go. No matter how many notes you write asking me to."

Dean didn't bother responding to that. They were quiet all the way back to Lebanon, and Sam didn't even try to sleep in the passenger seat.

* * *

Sam's legs are broken again. Or missing. He's not sure, but he can't move or see them. He's in a dark room, where he's been for weeks, maybe months. Time hasn't mattered nearly as much since his century and a half, give or take, with the Devil.

He knows he's dying. He's heavily wounded, infections festering along the clefts in his body. Sam is rotting from the inside out. The scars that hellfire seared into his bones glow and pulse faintly where putrescent flesh has sloughed free.

Dean is here. He can see in the dark because his eyes are black. He wants to watch Sam decay away to nothing.

"You know you deserve this, right?" Dean asks quietly. Sam is fully aware.

When Dean touches him, his hand goes right through, the flesh now the consistency of leftover snow in a warm April. The new hole compromises what remains of Sam's integrity, and he feels himself begin to fall apart.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam was in the library looking for another case, the only useful thing he could think of doing, when Dean found him. It was three days after they'd wrapped up the thing with the witches and they'd barely been catching glimpses of each other; the Men of Letters had built the bunker big enough for two people to maintain plenty of distance between themselves. Whenever Dean had to come into a place where Sam was, like now, he was loud about it. Much louder than a lifetime of hunting had left him naturally. He was trying not to spook him, and that burned in Sam's gut like a fresh bullet.

"So." Dean exhaled loudly as he sat down across from Sam at the big wooden table. Sam lowered the screen of his laptop. "You wanna tell me exactly what's been happening in these nightmares of yours?"

"I can't." Sam knew the half-second of hesitation wouldn't be lost on Dean.

"C'mon, Sam, I'm a big boy," Dean stated, humorless. "I can take it. And I feel like I oughta know."

"No. I mean, I literally can't tell you." Sam shook his head. "I don't even remember most of it."

From the way Dean looked at him, Sam was pretty sure he knew he was lying. But he didn't press it.

"Just so you know, I hate you for making me do this," Dean told Sam, and Sam blinked at him as something tightened unpleasantly in his chest. "Literally my least favorite thing in the whole world to do. Rather spend a night crawling through the sewers." Dean cleared his throat. "Guess it'd be an understatement to say that what happened to me was rough on both of us. We're both still hurting." He licked his lips. "I've been having nightmares, too. 'Bout what I did, even though most of it wasn't that bad 'cause Crowley kept me on such a short leash; gotta give him credit for that. And I've been having nightmares about what could've happened."

Sam folded his hands and gripped tight, nails stinging on the backs. "I'm sorry."

"We can't keep going like this," Dean replied with a shake of his head. "And you won't let me leave and I'm betting you won't even consider going yourself, either, so the only option left's to work it out."

Sam closed his laptop completely, pushed it off to the side.

"There's a practical side to this, too. We've got a pretty big problem to take care of." Dean patted the Mark, exposed currently by the T-shirt he was wearing. "And we can't do that if we can't stand to be around each other."

"That's..." Sam let out a breath. "Actually a good point."

"We don't gotta...start everything back up again, though." Dean looked away for the first time since he'd started talking. "Not right now. Or ever. We've lived and hunted with each other without sleeping together before, not gonna kill us to do it again." One hand curled into a loose fist on the glossy wood of the table. "Might actually be for the best, even. Cooling it off permanently."

"Are you serious?" Sam demanded after a disbelieving little scoff. "Dean, I don't wanna..._break up _with you. Jesus." He sat back in his chair, shaking his head again as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I never have. I feel like it's pretty obvious by now we can't function without each other, and the other stuff is part of it. It's not just sleeping together. I can't even think of anything that'd make me stop wanting you, and this definitely isn't one of them." He dragged a hand through his hair. "I'm assuming that's what this is about, at least. Please don't tell me we've gotta rehash the whole brother thing again."

"No. No." What Dean was feeling was written all over his face, and it was some strange, malformed hybrid, halfway between relief and disappointment. Like it would've simultaneously broken and freed him for Sam to agree they needed to split. Sam wondered if he shouldn't regret his answer. "But...good." When Sam put his hands back on the table, Dean took hold of them, very carefully. And the touch was so good Sam had to close his eyes for a second, forgetting completely about feeling bad. Some tension in Dean's palms relaxed into Sam. "So. This is what we're gonna do."

"Yeah?" Sam opened his eyes.

"We're gonna take it real slow," Dean started. "Like we're starting all over again. We're not gonna do anything you don't want, and I'm gonna...do my best to prove it's safe for me to be around you. To you and me both." He took a deep breath. "I don't wanna hurt you. I'm _not _gonna hurt you, even when you've been a total wad all day and you deserve to have the stick knocked outta your ass."

Sam smirked a little.

"We're gonna have to talk," he pointed out. "Both of us. A lot."

"I've done my talking," Dean replied. "Way more of it than I wanted to. Tell you what, you can talk, and I'll listen. Sound good?"

"Jerk," Sam said fondly.

"Bitch," Dean returned with a little smile, and then they leaned in, slow, awkward, eyes open until they found the edges of each other's lips. Sam saw threads of gold and navy in Dean's irises, no black, and their lashes meshed when they closed their eyes. There was a feeling like a key sliding home deep inside Sam, and Dean did not taste like sulfur.

As Dean had suggested, they took it slow. Only easy hunts close to home, which worked out well because things were relatively quiet right now, and other hunters were more than willing to pick up the slack. During their downtime, they went on dates, their kind of dates, more than they'd been on in years. Dinner at the cozy diners in Lebanon, where the waitresses knew their names and slipped Dean free pie. Hitting a late-night showing of a horror movie so they could loudly make fun of it in the empty theater. Having a beer, pizza, and sweats TV marathon. Taking a road trip to catch a game or a concert or some astronomical event an app on Sam's phone had alerted him to.

They slowly got comfortable with each other again, with contact. Sam didn't tense when Dean's hand landed on his shoulder or his hip bumped into him, Dean didn't tell him he'd be safer not falling asleep around him. They kissed. Sam's heart stopped speeding up right before he met Dean's eyes.

There were gifts, too. Flowers and chocolate, first of all, which Sam accepted graciously, flattered but also confused. Dean must've picked up on that, because then it was books, kale, fruit. Coconut oil because he'd read it was good for your hair. A bottle of Riesling. Sam was more of a red guy, but he had to try it anyway when he saw the year on the label. Damn wine was old enough for him to date, as Dean so helpfully put it.

"How much _was_ this?" Sam pulled the cork free. He knew decanting it in a mason jar was trashy and probably wouldn't work right, but he was going to do it anyway. It was all he had.

"Not as much as it could've been," Dean replied, struggling not to smile and so plainly pleased with himself. He hadn't looked like that in months. "Got a huge discount 'cause we're regular customers."

So there were plenty of good moments, like that. And Sam wasn't twenty-two anymore, he didn't think that everything had to be good all the time, but a majority of the time didn't seem like too much to ask for. And mostly, it was all still off. There was still something there between them, or maybe still missing. They hadn't even had sex again yet, and maybe that was just part of taking it slow, and Sam honestly wouldn't have minded if it didn't feel like a symptom of a larger problem.

Kind of like how they weren't sleeping in the same bed again yet, either. Or how Sam was still having nightmares.

Sam didn't know how to solve the issue because he wasn't even fully sure what was going on. Dean clearly wasn't, either. So Sam did what he'd always been told he was good at, and did too much. He thought. He turned the situation over in his head like a Rubik's cube while they finally finished _Breaking Bad_, while Dean made a spinach and bacon quiche, while Sam kneaded at the chronic tightness in Dean's neck and shoulders. Even when he was dreaming, a black-eyed Dean skinning him alive and pulling him apart, he felt like a section of him was still thinking about it.

And one day, finally, it all clicked into place.

Sam went into Dean's room, carrying a heavy box he'd meticulously wrapped in newspaper. He'd slapped a bow on top, even, one of the pre-tied ones stapled to a sticky piece of cardstock. Dean was stretched out on his bed, one arm folded under his head and the other hand holding a battered copy of _Slapstick_ above his face. He put it down on his chest when Sam came in.

"This isn't working." Sam set the box down on Dean's desk.

"Looks like you did a pretty good job of it to me," Dean replied, rolling onto his side to examine the package. "You're a regular Martha Stewart."

"That's not what I mean." Sam sat down on the bed.

Dean sat up, slowly, bending his knees and putting his elbows on them. He stared at Sam, rubbing his mouth, then laughed hollowly and looked away as he shook his head.

"No, course not," he agreed, and heat began to rise in his voice. "Look, Sam, I just really don't get what you want from me here, okay? My gut told me to put as much distance as possible between you and me soon as I woke up human again. But you didn't want that, and of course I wanna stay with you. That's all I've ever wanted, my whole damn life." He spread his hands. "So I figured hey, what the hell, maybe you're right, maybe it'll be okay and I can show you you don't gotta be afraid of me anymore."

"I - " Sam started, but Dean wasn't even close to being finished.

"And I have been working my _ass_ off." He got up off the bed. "To get back in the swing of things and act normal and ignore the Mark. Plus believe we're gonna be able to get it off me and that I'm not gonna die and turn into a demon again before that happens. Or go on a killing spree." He was stalking around the room in his socks, mad. "And, y'know, maybe it doesn't feel right, but I'm coming to terms with nothing ever feeling totally right for me again, and I'm okay long as it feels right for you."

"Hey." Sam tried to catch Dean's arm as he passed, but missed.

"And now you're telling me it's gone wrong for you, too." Dean turned to face Sam, anger, self-loathing, and a sick, relieved sort of resignation carved hard and deep into his face. "It's gotta be me. We both know it's gotta be me, I'm the rotten apple in our bunch right now." He flung his arms out to the sides. "Probably not gonna be able to fix it no matter what, but can you even tell me how I fucked it up this time?"

"No, 'cause it wasn't you. You didn't do anything wrong." Dean had put the Mark on his arm without talking to Sam about it in the first place, but if they were gonna stand around and drag out old screw-ups, Sam'd be in way more trouble than Dean. "I did."

"Oh, right, yeah, 'cause you're _somehow_ having nightmares about me after I told you I hated you and tried to bash your skull in with a hammer," Dean agreed sarcastically. "How dare you, Sam?"

"No, that's not what I mean." Sam got up himself, walked over to Dean. "I shouldn't've put the burden on you. Not when you're already drowning, with everything else we've got going on. I shouldn't be making you try to...win me back, prove yourself." He shook his head, disgusted with himself. "You've done that a thousand times over the years. What you said and did while you literally weren't yourself doesn't change that."

Sam could tell from the shape of Dean's mouth he didn't feel the same way. He continued.

"Me having you shower me with gifts, and come up with a plan for getting us back on track all on your own, and letting these stupid dreams get to me in a way that makes me actually afraid of you...that's me feeding into you believing what happened was all your fault. And I shouldn't be doing that."

"You think it wasn't my fault." It was a statement.

"Dean, Crowley tricked you into tracking down Cain and making him give you the Mark!" Sam exclaimed. "You did it to save lives, and you didn't know what it was gonna do to you." Sam worried at his lower lip. "I've been letting it be all about me. _Making_ it all about me. And that's wrong, 'cause it's about you. It's about _us_, and that's why this isn't working." He put his hands on Dean's shoulders. "So...we're gonna try something different."

He steered Dean back to the bed. Dean was tense, pain still seething just below his skin, but he went. He sat down, and Sam put the box in his lap before climbing onto the memory-foam mattress opposite him. Dean grunted when the package hit his thighs.

"Christ, Sam, what'd you put in here, rocks?"

"Just open it."

Dean pulled the bow off, ripped the paper, pulled the flaps up. He began to dig through the box, lifting out the presents Sam had finally realized he should be giving him. New flannels, his favorite beer, chocolate bars, barrel-aged whiskey, car magazines, bags of jerky (chili-lime flavor, mostly), a new pair of headphones with padded, noise-canceling earcups and a reinforced cord. Dean had relaxed some and started smiling a little by the midway point. The smile disappeared when he grabbed the last stack of magazines and saw what was in the very bottom of the box.

"No." He looked up at Sam.

"Look, it - "

"It isn't a good idea," Dean interrupted, flat. Like he thought that'd be the end of the conversation.

"We've done it before," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, years ago. And it was okay then." Dean paused. "Actually, it was pretty great. But right now?" He shook his head, setting the box aside. "It'll end bad."

"No, it won't." Sam didn't know know how to make Dean understand how much time he'd put into this, that it wasn't just a whim or an impulse. "I went out and picked you up, brought you back here, cured you, and now it's time I finished what I started. Me." He put his hands out in appeal. "I wanna prove I trust you."

"But you shouldn't," Dean replied. "I get why you're trying so hard, I get why you feel like you can't give up, 'cause I'm the exact same way when it comes to you. But even if you won't admit it, you and me both know the absolute best thing for us right now, 'specially you, is distance." He was hunched over. "Me leaving or, better yet, you locking me up in the dungeon again so you can finally get some damn sleep."

"I appreciate that..." Sam forced himself to say it even though it wasn't true. "But like I said, it's not about me."

"You're not the threat here, Sam," Dean grated. "You're the victim. Of course it's about you."

"You're a victim, too." Sam put a hand on Dean's knee. He couldn't tell if he liked it or not. "Which is why you've gotta stop hating yourself for what happened, and thinking of us trying to patch things up as a punishment."

"Just - " Dean's leg jerked out from under Sam's touch, and he clawed aggressively at the Mark. His blunt nails left pale red lines scored across the infection-colored glyph. "Long as I'm carrying this around, I'm just a watered-down version of what I was when I was a demon. And since we keep talking about proving stuff, when I was a demon, I _proved_ I can't be trusted around you even when things're normal, much less when you're..." He gestured at the near-empty box, hand limp. "Wearing all that."

Sam reached out again and this time, touched the Mark. Covered it completely, his hand more than big enough for the job. He was surprised Dean let him. It was fever-hot against the calluses and scars on his palm.

"You're not a watered-down version of a demon," he told him quietly, shaking his head, "because you're not _this_. It's not you. It ran off with your body, and...I know what that feels like." He swallowed. "You forgave me for what I did to you while I was possessed by Meg, and Lucifer, and while I didn't have a soul, and all of that was way worse than some lame insults and a hammer." He thought he might've seen a suggestion of a smile then, but didn't get his hopes up. "I forgive you. I trust you. And I think this is a good way to help you get there with yourself, too."

Dean looked at Sam for a long moment, then shook his own head and opened his mouth slightly. "Your nightmares..."

"Are my problem," Sam answered firmly. "I was right about that the first time. And once whatever part of my brain's been spewing 'em out has concrete evidence you're not gonna hurt me even if I can't fight back, I think that'll take care of it."

Dean eyed him. Sam couldn't tell quite what he was thinking, but his green eyes were dull, his face slack. _Like a devil's sick of sin_, some tattered scrap in Sam's memory supplied unhelpfully.

"You want me to stop blaming myself," Dean said. He leaned forward. "But what about you? You think it's your fault. You think you owe some debt. And you want me to hurt you, so you can pay it."

The breath left Sam in a burst. Raw and hot, like he'd been punched in the stomach or kicked in the balls.

"That's what this is about, isn't it?" Dean was almost smiling when he asked it. "That's what your nightmares are about. This martyr kink you've had long as I've known you."

Nothing cut quite as deep as the truth, Sam had learned over the years, or stung quite as bad. It was one of the ways you could identify it even when throwing up razor blades sounded better than believing it. It took him a long time to recover, but when he did, his resolve wasn't shaken.

"Maybe you're right," he told Dean, and every cell in his body knew he was. "So...do this, with me, but don't give me what I want."

He let go of the Mark and took Dean's hands, like Dean did for him while he was proposing his own plan. Sam held them between their laps.

"You're still my brother," Sam told him. "I love you." He squeezed Dean's hands. "And maybe I'm being selfish. Probably I am. But this feels like a good step to me anyway."

Holding eye contact with Sam, Dean breathed in, then explosively out. Then he said, "You're gonna be helpless, Sam. And I know you can get loose, but a whole lot can happen before you're free." He pulled one hand out of Sam's so he could drag the box over and peer critically into it. "I'm not doing this unless you've got some kind of guarantee to keep you safe."

Part of Sam didn't want to agree to a backup plan or a safeguard. That would be too much like admitting there was a real danger.

But he also wasn't an idiot. You didn't forego a safeword just because you knew your partner wouldn't intentionally hurt you. And they had always, always used a safeword, even when they weren't doing anything innately dangerous, because of the past traumas layered on their psyches like burn scars.

"We'll bring Cas in," Sam replied. "Have him wait out in the library." Seeing the look on Dean's face, he amended, "Or closer. I'll pray to him the second anything doesn't feel right to me, I promise." And he would force himself to hold to that, no matter how much he thought he deserved the pain in the moment.

"He'll be okay with that?"

"He'll probably just be happy we're having sex again."

"And you'll hide the hammers?"

Sam chuckled before he realized Dean wasn't smiling.

"Yeah. I'll...I'll take all the weapons outta here beforehand, if you want." Sam swallowed. "If it'd make you feel better."

"It really would." Dean put his hand back in Sam's.


	5. Chapter 5

The taped up cuffs, specially designated for this sort of thing years back, pulled Sam's wrists up above his head and down, the chain looped through a beam on the frame of Dean's bed so his knuckles brushed the headboard. Cotton ropes were knotted around his calves and ankles at one end and the legs of the bed at the other, pulling his lower body into a wide V. A blindfold (actually just an old tie, repurposed after being burned and torn on one end) covered his eyes. All these things had been in the bottom of the box he gave Dean.

Castiel was in the bunker, just down the hall, quiet and listening for Sam's prayer.

Goosebumps prickled up and down the full length of Sam's body. His pulse galloped in his throat and temples. To be totally naked, no gun or knife or even watch, outside of a shower for the first time in months felt alien and only distantly familiar. Sam had kept a firm handle on his nerves, stopped himself from trembling, as Dean had tied him in. This was the vulnerability he'd wanted to offer up.

The blindfold had been the last thing to go on and even though he'd specifically selected it, Sam'd almost told Dean he didn't want it. Anxiety foamed over at the thought of not being able to see his eyes. Catch the switch to black. Of course it wouldn't happen, of course it was ridiculous, and Sam was bound securely to Dean's bed. He couldn't do anything about it even if he saw Dean spontaneously turning into a demon.

And it was about trust, surrender. Also, just a little, hiding any fear he might feel from Dean so it wouldn't put him off.

At least one part of him wasn't obsessing over black eyes and nightmares, and remembered pleasure rather than panic. Blood was plumping out his cock, which laid heavy against his thigh, swollen but not quite erect.

Sam heard Dean sit down on the bed, but the mattress didn't sink towards him: memory foam. Sam rolled his head in his direction as his breathing picked involuntarily up. He wondered if Dean was naked yet, and that was an unexpectedly exciting image. His dick twitched.

"Last chance to change your mind." Dean was horny. Sam could hear it in the rougher-than-usual rumble of his voice. He was also uncertain; Sam didn't even know what told him that.

Sam drew in a breath he knew would spread his already-broad chest, arching his body. His hips pressed into the mattress, his spine curved. He could've choked on his heartbeat as he offered the softest, most fragile pieces of himself to Dean.

"The only reason I wouldn't want this is if you changed _your _mind." He let the words out on a rush of air.

Dean didn't say anything, didn't move. Sam was sure he was about to unlock the cuffs, let him bring his elbows down from where they were pointing up at the ceiling, but he didn't. A hand touched the meld of his collarbone. Sam stopped breathing. Dean dragged heavy fingertips down the bisecting line of Sam's body, sternum and stomach, catching on the hair between his pecs and below his navel. Sam was half-hard and his sac was tingling. Dean stopped right before he reached his cock, and cupped his hip instead. He stroked the ridge of bone with one thumb, finding a scar on it, a mole. Sam leaned into the contact.

Then Dean climbed up, knees popping, a grunt slipping out of him. No fabric besides the bedding rustled, so he wasn't wearing any clothes. Knees and hands sank into the smother-soft inertia of the mattress on either side of Sam. He could feel Dean's heat, his weight, even though he wasn't touching him. He could smell him. Sweat and coffee and leather and oil and metal and salt and vanilla and dirt and the little bit of whiskey he'd been nursing while getting Sam ready, from the bottle he'd given to him. There was no sulfur, not even a hint of eggs gone days past turning, but Sam couldn't let go of the surety it was there and he just couldn't catch it after decades of inhaling the reek of rotting meat and graveyard dirt and ghost ozone.

And Sam was shaking now. Tense. He was breathing again, at least, but that was only because the blackness behind his blindfold had started to fuzz and spark.

"I'm sorry," Sam gasped out. "I'm fine. K-keep going, keep going. Please."

Again, Dean didn't say anything, but then he lowered himself. Sam heard his joints. Something hard and warm from his skin landed gentle on Sam's chest. Dean's breath, mostly toothpaste and alcohol, ghosted across Sam's face as he spoke to him softly.

"You wanna finish what you started," Dean whispered. "But you gotta let me do my part, too. Gonna do this right, not gonna rush through it."

He kissed Sam then, slow at first, like he was making sure he wanted it. He teased Sam's mouth open when he didn't pull away. It was really good whiskey that Sam had bought him, that he was tasting on his tongue now.

Dean was a good kisser, always had been. Part of it had to be the insane fullness of his mouth. Sam's dick responded appropriately.

When they broke, Dean swiping his tongue across Sam's bottom lip like a goodbye, Sam realized what the pointed shape sitting at his chest was. It was attached, he knew to a leather cord around Dean's neck, where it had hung every single day until five or six years ago.

Sam had pulled the amulet out of the wastebasket when Dean left the room, unable to let it go, and it'd been jumbled in among his most important things ever since. The fact Dean was wearing it now meant he'd not only known Sam had it, but exactly where to look. Sam's eyes stung beneath his lids and the layer of fabric.

Dean kissed him again, then climbed off him and sat down nearby. He stroked his hair until Sam's body unknotted and his heart calmed down, adrenaline tapering slowly off. Head resting against one bicep, Sam panted. Wet tracks had wound their way out from under the blindfold by then.

"You think I deserve to get you back, after what happened." Dean's voice was so rough. "I think you deserve to enjoy this."

Sam let out a quiet, wounded sound he hoped didn't make Dean call things off.

It didn't. Dean reached down to his dick, which had drooped some but perked right back up at his touch. He stroked him easily out to his full length, knuckles brushing his balls every so often, and Sam felt precome pearling on his tip. Dean let go of him once he was wholly hard.

"I wanna suck you off," Dean said like it was a totally normal, everyday statement. "That okay with you?"

"Of course." There was nothing remotely sexy about Sam's voice to his own ears. Didn't seem to bother Dean.

Dean moved down the bed, below Sam's waist. He licked him clean of pre, tonguing deep into his slit like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted, and Sam jerked. Dean stopped for a second.

"No," Sam assured him, panting. "It's good."

Dean held him firmly at his base and took his whole head into the wet, hot softness of his mouth. Filthy slurping noises came from Sam's groin as he started to suck, and Sam felt himself spurt right onto Dean's tongue. Soon he pulled more of him in, had him in the corner of his jaw, had Sam bowing out his cheek as he bobbed his head up and down. His lips formed a tight seal but he was drooling heavy down Sam's shaft anyway, onto his hand and Sam's balls. Sam was really regretting the blindfold again now, just because he would've loved to be able to see Dean like this. They didn't blow each other that often (road and hunt hygiene didn't make for great-tasting cocks), but Dean was a vision sucking a dick. He knew it, too, put on a show, and Sam was missing it.

Unexpectedly, Dean swallowed him, _all _of him, with a deep gulp. He let go of him so he could get all the way to the hilt. Sam gasped. He threw his head back automatically as the muscles of Dean's throat tightened around him.

Then Dean pulled off, though, just as quick as he'd gone on, with a gagging cough and a lot of spit. He gave Sam a quick squeeze before climbing off the bed. Sam heard a drawer in his nightstand open.

"Sorry," Dean rasped. "Be back in a sec."

"You're good." Sam was breathing hard again, but finally for a good reason.

Dean had gone to the nightstand for lube. The cap popped open, the bottle squelched. It was warm when Dean's slick fingers met his hole. Sam twitched and spasmed but thankfully, Dean seemed to get that he was excited, not afraid.

Dean worked him open. It felt like it took forever to get only two fingers up inside him, even with Dean lapping teasingly at Sam's cock to remind his body what was going on.

"Tight," Dean commented huskily.

"Been a while," Sam breathed back.

Once he was past the pucker, the ring of muscle relaxed enough to allow his index and middle fingers in, Dean crooked them and expertly caught Sam's prostate. Icy lightning thrilled up Sam's body and he moaned appreciatively, trying to rock down onto Dean's hand. He was tied too tightly to do it properly, though.

Dean started deepthroating him again as he played with his prostate. Sam groaned and whimpered and begged and thrust up into his mouth as best he could, muscles of his thighs and stomach shaking. He was getting close before long, an orgasm he could already tell would be blackout powerful building in his core.

But then Dean stopped, mouth lifting off and fingers coming out, and Sam frowned.

"What - ?"

"Want me to make you come now?" Dean's voice was always gravel and smoke after a blowjob. "Or d'you want me to fuck you?"

"Fuck me." Bad as he wanted that climax right now, it was a no-brainer.

"You got it, baby boy."

Dean took the opportunity to thoroughly check Sam's extremities, feeling his hands and feet, asking about numbness, tingling, cold spots. There were none, he'd known what he was doing. Meanwhile, his saliva cooled on Sam's dick, and the ridiculous amount of lube he'd used leaked sloppily out of Sam's entrance.

"Still okay with the blindfold?" Dean tugged at it.

"Yeah." Sam took a breath. "How're you doing?"

"Better than I thought I was gonna. Condom?"

"No." He didn't want anything between them.

Sam was just starting to wonder how Dean was going to get inside him with his legs tied up (the angle'd be awkward, to say the least) when the ropes loosened and fell free, knots pulled apart. Sam's skin stung some where the cotton had bit against his straining, and Dean rubbed rough hands down his shins. Then he knelt between Sam's thighs, took him by the hips, and pulled him onto himself.

Dean was iron-hard and fire-hot, and of course Sam was more than ready to take him after what he'd been doing with his fingers and his mouth. Dean's girth sliding easily home inside him reignited the blaze in Sam's stomach, which had started burning low when he stopped touching him.

It felt like completion, rotating a misfit puzzle piece so it finally slotted into the empty spot, picking up the detail that forced the disparate and opposing facts of a case to start making sense.

More than that, it just felt _good _to be filled up like this again, good in a way Sam hadn't even let himself think about for a long time.

He rested his calves on Dean's shoulders, flexible enough to do that easily, and dropped his pelvis low as his hamstrings would allow to give them both a good angle. Then Dean started to thrust, _shlick_ing through lube and against Sam's tender flesh, cock nudging his prostate and all the other sensitive spots inside him. After a little bit, Dean went to holding Sam in place with only one hand so he could wrap the other around his cock.

"Harder," Sam pleaded. Because he appreciated the gentleness but he needed more. When Dean hesitated, not even moving, he added "I _trust_ you," the words liquid in his mouth.

That seemed to be all the permission Dean needed to throw more of his weight, his strength, behind his thrusts, battering Sam's inner walls in exactly the way he wanted him to.

For a blissfully long time, longer than Sam would have expected to be able to last after months without a real orgasm, there were only little noises. The slapping of sweaty skin, the creaking of the bedframe, gasps and groans from Sam and Dean both. Even the maybe-imaginary sound of the amulet bouncing on Dean's chest. It was all the best sort of music. Dean stripped Sam's cock even as he fucked him, and Sam tugged instinctively at the cuffs, the taped-over edges digging dully into his wrists.

Eventually, finally, Sam started cresting again. He could feel the electrified edge of it, knew it'd be ever stronger than the one he would've had in Dean's mouth, and it was coming for him hard, much like pain in his nightmares. He was eagerly anticipating this impact, though.

And it hit like lightning striking sand, vaporization, crystallization, divine will given form. Sam's entire body alive and singing with pleasure. It felt like what Dean wrung out of him had been clawed all the way down from his throat, every inch fought for. It hurt like no orgasm Sam had ever experienced before and was also easily the best he'd ever had.

He was still riding aftershocks, little waves where he was floating in the shallows of a warm, buoyant lake, when Dean finished inside him. His was world-ending, too, from the way it rocked him, and Sam heard him sob. Of course he didn't judge him. The blindfold over his eyes was soaked by then.

Dean laid Sam's bottom half down gently when he was finished. Sam could feel the quiver in his muscles, so it had to be hard. Dean slumped onto the mattress next to him, head on his chest, arm draped protectively over him. Sam heard him breathing and automatically matched his rhythm.

They might've slept like that, for a little while. Then Dean pushed himself up and began to speak, throat raw.

"You were right," he whispered. "I couldn't feel it at all. The Mark." The blindfold came off Sam's sore eyes, and Dean's were the overwhelming, primordial green of a wet forest in the dazzling light of his bedroom, dark but not black, framed by puffy red lids and damp-clumped lashes. "Only you."


	6. Chapter 6

"Am I correct in assuming it was successful?" Castiel asked, tactfully as he probably could.

"Yeah." Sam cleared his throat softly, squeezing a little where his hand was resting loosely on top of Dean's. More like a coincidence than an embrace, but still warm. "It - it was. Thanks, Cas."

"I'd hoped." Castiel looked relieved. "You didn't call for me, and you both look much better than you did. More...like before." He hesitated, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "Of course it's not my place to meddle in your relationship." If anyone had a right, though, Sam was pretty sure Castiel did. He'd never been anything but supportive, no questions or jibes even at the beginning. Like it was an inevitable fact he was thrilled to accept. "But I'll admit I was getting worried."

"Yeah, well." Dean coughed. "Us, too."

Castiel smiled at them, across the table in the library they were sitting at. Beamed, really. Then he planted his hands on it and pushed himself up. "Well. I'd better be going."

"Oh...Cas. No." Sam shook his head. "You don't have to do that."

"I have a case," Castiel explained reasonably, shrugging.

"Then stay the night." Dean spoke up. "At least."

"I do appreciate the offer, but I'm not going to take you up on it," Castiel stated, gentle. "Me being here tonight would be too much like intruding on a couple's honeymoon, and of course I wouldn't dream of that." His eyes, Sam realized, were lingering on Dean's amulet. "I'm just happy I was able to help at all."

"Thank you," Dean called after him as he left, then glanced at Sam. "So. Bed?"

"Yeah." Sam felt light with exhaustion, like his bones had been hollowed out. "Mine, though. I don't think yours is really...fit to sleep in right now."

* * *

There's a demon in Sam's dream, still. It has black eyes and tries to dig vital pieces out of him. It's not Dean, though. It's not even Lucifer. Honestly, when Sam focuses on it, the one it looks most like is him.

It's weak, barely makes Sam bleed. He's used to that, though. Doesn't mind the scars.

He leaves it when he gets bored, goes wandering through the vast and untamed country of motels and dorm rooms and Cages and bunkers and oceans and Impalas and burning houses that is his sleeping mind. He's looking for Dean, the real Dean. The Dean who won't hurt him.

He's willing to wake up to find him.


End file.
